Famous Women (I Tatti Renaissance Library)

Chapter One

De Eva parente prima

Scripturus igitur quibus fulgoribus mulieres claruerint insignes, a matre omnium sumpsisse exordium non apparebit indignum: ea quippe vetustissima patens, uti prima, sic magnificis fuit insignis splendoribus. Nam, non in hac erumnosa miseriarum valle, in qua ad laborem ceteri mortales nascimur, producta est, nec eodem malleo aut incude etiam fabrefacta, seu eiulans nascendi crimen deflens, aut invalida, ceterorum ritu, venit in vitam; quin imo—quod nemini unquam alteri contigisse auditum est—cum iam ex limo terre rerum omnium Faber optimus Adam manu compegisset propria, et ex agro, cui postea Damascenus nomen inditum est, in orto delitiarum transtulisset eumque in soporem solvisset placidum, artificio sibi tantum cognito ex dormientis latere eduxit eandem, sui compotem et maturam viro et loci amenitate atque sui Factoris letabundam intuitu, immortalem et rerum dominam atque vigilantis iam viri sociam, et ab eodem Evam etiam nominatam.

    Quid maius, quid splendidius potuit unquam contigisse nascenti? Preterea hanc arbitrari possumus corporea formositate mirabilem. Quid enim Del digito factum est quod cetera non excedat pulchritudine? Et quamvis formositas hec annositate peritura sit aut, medio in etatis flore, parvo egritudinis inpulsu, lapsura, tamen, quia inter precipuas dotes suas mulieres numerant, et plurimum ex ea glorie, mortalium indiscreto iudicio, iam consecute sunt, non superflue inter claritates earum, tanquam fulgor precipuus, et apposita est et in sequentibus apponenda veniet.

    Hec insuper,tamiure originis quam incolatus, paradisi civis facta et amicta splendore nobis incognito, dum una cum viro loci delitiis frueretur avide, invidus sue felicitatis hostis nepharia illi suasione ingessit animo, si adversus unicam sibi legem a Deo impositam iret, in ampliorem gloriam iri posse. Cui dum levitate feminea, magis quam illi nobisque oportuerit, crederet seque stolide ad altiora conscensuram arbitraretur, ante alia, blanda quadam suggestione, virum flexibilem in sententiam suam traxit; et in legem agentes, arboris boni et mali poma dum gustassent, temerario ausu seque genusque suum omne futurum ex quiete et eternitate in labores anxios et miseram mortem et ex delectabili patria inter vepres glebas et scopulos deduxere.

    Nam, cum lux corusca, qua incedebant amicti, abiisset, a turbato Creatore suo obiurgati, perizomatibus cincti, ex delitiarum loco in agros Hebron pulsi exulesque venere. Ibi egregia mulier, his facinoribus clara, cum prima—ut a nonnullis creditum est—vertente terram ligonibus viro, colo nere adinvenisset, sepius dolores partus experta est; et, quibus ob mortem filiorum atque nepotum angustiis angeretur animus, eque misere passa; et, ut algores estusque sinam et incomoda cetera, fessa laboribus moritura devenit in senium.

Eve, Our First Mother

As I am going to write about the glories for which women have become famous, it will not seem inappropriate to begin with the mother of us all. She is the most ancient of mothers and, as the first, she was singled out for special honors. She was not brought forth in this wretched vale of misery in which the rest of us are born to labor; she was not wrought with the same hammer or anvil; nor did she come into life like others, either weak or tearfully bewailing original sin. Instead (and this never happened to anyone else, so far as I know), after the most excellent Creator of all things had formed Adam from earthly clay with his own hand and had taken him from the field later called Damascene to the garden of delights, he made Adam fall into peaceful slumber. With a skill known only to himself, God brought forth a woman from Adam's side as he lay sleeping. Adult, ripe for marriage, joyful at the beauty of the place and at the sight of her Maker, she was also the immortal mistress of nature and the companion of the man who, now awake, named her Eve.

    Could anything greater and more glorious ever happen to someone at birth? We can imagine, besides, how marvelously beautiful her body was, for whatever God creates with his own hand will certainly surpass everything else in beauty. Beauty, to be sure, perishes with old age, and even in the flower of youth it may vanish from a slight attack of illness. Yet, since women count beauty among their foremost endowments and have achieved, owing to the superficial judgment of mortals, much glory on that account, it will not seem excessive to place beauty here and in the following pages as the most dazzling aspect of their fame.

    Eve, furthermore, became a citizen of Paradise as much by right of origin as of residence, and she was cloaked in a radiance unknown to us. While she and her husband were eagerly enjoying the garden's pleasures, the Enemy, envious of her happiness, impressed upon her with perverted eloquence the belief that she could attain greater glory if she disobeyed the one law that God had laid upon her. With a woman's fickleness, Eve believed him more than was good for her or for us; foolishly, she thought that she was about to rise to greater heights. Her first step was to flatter her pliant husband into her way of thinking. Then they broke the law and tasted the apple of the Tree of Good and Evil. By this rash, foolhardy act they brought themselves and all their future descendants from peace and immortality to anxious labor and wretched death, and from a delightful country to thorns, clods, and rocks.

    The gleaming light which clothed them disappeared. Rebuked by their angry Creator and covered by a girdle of leaves, they were driven out of Eden and came as exiles to the fields of Hebron. There, while her husband tilled the soil with the hoe, this distinguished woman, famous for her above-mentioned deeds, discovered (so some believe) the art of spinning with the distaff. She experienced the pains of frequent childbirth and also suffered the grief which tortures the mind at the death of children and grandchildren. I shall pass over the cold and heat and her other sufferings. Finally she reached old age, tired out by her labors, waiting for death.